My day never really stops. Between APs, sports, clubs, jobs and the expectations we place on ourselves there’s barely room in my day to breathe.
That’s where my phone usually comes in.
For me, it feels like more than a device; it’s both a distraction and an outlet. I text between classes, scroll for a break and listen to music during my free period. Like many students, I use my phone to check out from the stress around me. So when Staples announced the new phone ban, I groaned along with everyone around me. It felt like just another pressure we didn’t ask for.
But if I’m honest with myself, my phone doesn’t really take the stress away. Half the time it magnifies it. It shows me the best version of everyone else’s life on social media while I am still figuring out my own. The more I sit with that, the more I think the phone ban might not be such a bad thing.
Every student at Staples lived through the pandemic at a formative age. We learned to rely on screens not just for school work, but for friendship, connection and even identity almost overnight. According to the National Library of Medicine, “nearly 29,000 children and adolescents found that daily screen time increased by 84 minutes per day (roughly a 52% increase) during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to pre-pandemic levels.” We got used to that constant online connection with our friends and family, but in the process, some of the simpler ways of connecting were lost: talking to someone new, noticing someone sitting alone, laughing together in real time instead of through a screen. That shift changed my generation in a way that made us rely on our devices more than ever, not just for convenience, but for comfort.
Now, looking ahead at a school without my phone, I realize there might be something freeing about it. For the first time in years, we will be forced to put down our devices and actually speak to each other. We might strike conversations with people we would otherwise not talk to. We might start to notice smaller meaningful moments like extra smiles in the hallway. We might embrace awkwardness.
I know it won’t be perfect. I know I’ll miss my playlists and the easy distraction of scrolling. I may reach for my phone out of habit, but in that discomfort lies possibility. It will push me, and all of us to make that new connection, to engage in those small genuine moments.
High school is overwhelming and full of both pressures we choose and those placed on us. I don’t expect a phone ban to solve all of that. But if it nudges us to look up more, to be more present and realize we’re not navigating all this alone, then it’s not a punishment at all; it’s a reminder that the best connection has never been Wifi, it’s each other.
